This is my hair. People like it, say nice things about it - strangers come up to me and compliment it, frequently. I am identified by it, in crowded rooms, in cartoony silliness, and so on. It's thick, dark red and it goes down to my waist.

This is not naturally occurring miracle hair - it's a product of its environment, like the rest of us. It's a product of the isolation I whined about here and here; hairdressing, access to hair-as-fashion rather than hair-the-way-it-just-is, was something I was cut off from for a very long time. And because being without that sort of beauty play had given me the head of hair that it did, I never felt any desire to adopt it later. Why bother, when people paid to fake what I just naturally had? (The why is choice, enjoyment, play, and I guess that fashion stuff that I don't know a thing about).

I haven't had so much as a trim for at least 10 years. That's a shame, because if I did start trimming it it'd probably get a little longer.

I am backed into a corner here. I have only two appealing options; a) keep it as it is now, and b) shave it all off. All of it. Off. (Unfortunately the otherperson has said that if I shave it all off, he'll shave all his off. But, but, we like having good hair).

The reason writing this hurts is that I know my father likes it the way it is and quite deliberately made me keep it this way the entire time I lived with him.

I've been spending A LOT of time at the library since I've been back in Kansas. In fact, I was just there yesterday and checked out five books: a fiction novel by Kathy Reichs, a book about octopuses and squids written by Jacques Cousteau, a book about animal intelligence, one about Plains Native American medicine men, and the complete Grimm's fairytales